Best practices for IDS on virtual machine?
Hi Informixers, I'm system and database admin for our departmental IDS server. Currently we are running IDS 11.50 on Suse Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 10 (32bit) on a 5 year old Xeon machine. Overall data and transaction volume is rather modest, total amount of data is about 3GB. Performance has never been an issue with the current hardware, but now its time to plan for a replacement server. Company policy dictates that dedicated server hardware for departmental servers is to be avoided, so it will have to be a virtual machine under VMWare ESX. OS will be SLES 11 64bit, and we will probably move to the latest IDS 12.10 version. I've always used raw devices on partitions in RAID1 configuration, but what is the best way to go in a virtual environment? I'm aware that IO performance might be rather poor compared to physical hardware, but I have no choice. The ESX admins promised me storage space on a RAID10 LUN, how should I configure this? Raw devices seem to be a thing of the past. Is ext2 with DIRECT_IO (if available in IDS Workgroup Edition) still the recommended file system type? I'm unsure about the number of chunks and dbspaces in the virtual Environment: Does it make sense to use separate chunks and dbspaces for rootdbs, data and logical logs, or should I put everything into one large rootdbs since I cannot influence the physical storage anyway? I'd appreciate any pointers to "best practices" in the virtual environment. Regards, Richard
ext2 with DIRECT_IO worked well for me under VMWare ESXi .... however get as much memory as possible assigned to the VM and make your buffers larger than normal. Expect slower than usual checkpoints and adjust to cater. Try to persuade the VMWare admins to give your VM higher than normal disk priority.. every little helps. On 11 April 2013 21:05, R. Spitz <rspitz.md@googlemail.com> wrote: > Hi Informixers, > > I'm system and database admin for our departmental IDS server. Currently > we are running IDS 11.50 on Suse Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 10 (32bit) > on a 5 year old Xeon machine. Overall data and transaction volume is rather > modest, total amount of data is about 3GB. Performance has never been an > issue with the current hardware, but now its time to plan for a replacement > server. > > Company policy dictates that dedicated server hardware for departmental > servers is to be avoided, so it will have to be a virtual machine under > VMWare ESX. OS will be SLES 11 64bit, and we will probably move to the > latest IDS 12.10 version. > > I've always used raw devices on partitions in RAID1 configuration, but > what is the best way to go in a virtual environment? I'm aware that IO > performance might be rather poor compared to physical hardware, but I have > no choice. The ESX admins promised me storage space on a RAID10 LUN, how > should I configure this? > > Raw devices seem to be a thing of the past. Is ext2 with DIRECT_IO (if > available in IDS Workgroup Edition) still the recommended file system type? > I'm unsure about the number of chunks and dbspaces in the virtual > Environment: Does it make sense to use separate chunks and dbspaces for > rootdbs, data and logical logs, or should I put everything into one large > rootdbs since I cannot influence the physical storage anyway? > > I'd appreciate any pointers to "best practices" in the virtual environment. > > Regards, Richard > _______________________________________________ > Informix-list mailing list > Informix-list@iiug.org > http://www.iiug.org/mailman/listinfo/informix-list > -- Nick Lello | Web Architect o +44 (0) 843.330.9374 | o 503.284.7581 ext. 418 | m +44 (0) 750.890.3456 | Skype: nicholas.lello Email: nick.lello at rentrak.com RENTRAK | www.rentrak.com | NASDAQ: RENT
VM Best practices for databases: - IBM's Hypervisor has the lowest overhead and highest IO rates. - If you must use VMWare make sure you are using the vSphere hypervisor, it's IO is about double the older hypervisors from VMWare or running without one. - Yes RAID10. - As much as possible make sure you do not have competition for the physical disks underneath your LUNS, ESPECIALLY not Windows Filesystems and NEVER email stores. The access patterns are just too different from database access patterns. - EXT2 with DIRECT_IO, yes. - Yes to separate dbspaces for high access data like rootdb, logical logs, physical logs, high access tables and indexes. Informix assigns IO resources per dbspace and per chunk depending on specifics. More dbspaces and more chunks can lead to more total IO throughput. Keeping logical logs on different LUNs from physical logs and from high IO data dbspaces will take advantage of more physical resources like IO channels and spindles. Art Art S. Kagel Advanced DataTools (www.advancedatatools.com) Blog: http://informix-myview.blogspot.com/ Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that my own opinions are my own opinions and do not reflect on my employer, Advanced DataTools, the IIUG, nor any other organization with which I am associated either explicitly, implicitly, or by inference. Neither do those opinions reflect those of other individuals affiliated with any entity with which I am affiliated nor those of the entities themselves. On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 4:05 PM, R. Spitz <rspitz.md@googlemail.com> wrote: > Hi Informixers, > > I'm system and database admin for our departmental IDS server. Currently > we are running IDS 11.50 on Suse Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 10 (32bit) > on a 5 year old Xeon machine. Overall data and transaction volume is rather > modest, total amount of data is about 3GB. Performance has never been an > issue with the current hardware, but now its time to plan for a replacement > server. > > Company policy dictates that dedicated server hardware for departmental > servers is to be avoided, so it will have to be a virtual machine under > VMWare ESX. OS will be SLES 11 64bit, and we will probably move to the > latest IDS 12.10 version. > > I've always used raw devices on partitions in RAID1 configuration, but > what is the best way to go in a virtual environment? I'm aware that IO > performance might be rather poor compared to physical hardware, but I have > no choice. The ESX admins promised me storage space on a RAID10 LUN, how > should I configure this? > > Raw devices seem to be a thing of the past. Is ext2 with DIRECT_IO (if > available in IDS Workgroup Edition) still the recommended file system type? > I'm unsure about the number of chunks and dbspaces in the virtual > Environment: Does it make sense to use separate chunks and dbspaces for > rootdbs, data and logical logs, or should I put everything into one large > rootdbs since I cannot influence the physical storage anyway? > > I'd appreciate any pointers to "best practices" in the virtual environment. > > Regards, Richard > _______________________________________________ > Informix-list mailing list > Informix-list@iiug.org > http://www.iiug.org/mailman/listinfo/informix-list >